October 11-15

HEY EVERYONE!!!!!! I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING A GREAT FALL BREAK. HOWEVER......
we still have our education to think about, right? We want to accomplish great things, right?

“We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent. ” ~~ Barack Obama

English AP 11
this is a link to the vocabulary words for The Great Gatsby. There are 57 terms so you should begin to study these on quizlet NOW. http://quizlet.com/2467438/great-gatsby-h-m-king-flash-cards/
~~~~~~~~~~Read Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!  Remember you will have a reading test over The Great Gatsby as soon a you return to school. Please read the NOTES UNDER ENGLISH 11 ON Modernism & the Modern Novel. Print out and bring to class. You are responsible for knowing this information

English 11
this is a link to the vocabulary words for The Great Gatsby. There are 57 terms so you should begin to study these on quizlet NOW. http://quizlet.com/2467438/great-gatsby-h-m-king-flash-cards/
~~~~~~~~~~Read Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!  Remember you will have a reading test over The Great Gatsby as soon a you return to school.
Please read the following information. Print out and bring to class. You are responsible for knowing this information
 Modernism & the Modern Novel Notes:
The term modernism refers to the radical shift in aesthetic and cultural sensibilities evident in the art and literature of the post-World War One period. The ordered, stable and inherently meaningful world view of the nineteenth century could not, wrote T.S. Eliot, accord with "the immense panorama of futility and anarchy which is contemporary history." Modernism thus marks a distinctive break with Victorian bourgeois morality; rejecting nineteenth-century optimism, they presented a profoundly pessimistic picture of a culture in disarray. This despair often results in an apparent apathy and moral relativism.. Modernist writers, in their attempt to throw off the aesthetic burden of the realist novel, these writers introduced a variety of literary tactics and devices. Modernism is often derided for abandoning the social world in favor of its narcissistic interest in language and its processes. Recognizing the failure of language to ever fully communicate meaning ("That's not it at all, that's not what I meant at all" laments Eliot's J. Alfred Prufrock), the modernists generally downplayed content in favor of an investigation of form.The fragmented, non-chronological, poetic forms utilized by Eliot and Pound revolutionized poetic language. Modern life seemed radically different from traditional life -- more scientific, faster, more technological, and more mechanized. Modernism embraced these changes. Technological innovation in the world of factories and machines inspired new attentiveness to technique in the arts. To take one example: Light, particularly electrical light, fascinated modern artists and writers. Posters and advertisements of the period are full of images of floodlit skyscrapers and light rays shooting out from automobile headlights, movie houses, and watchtowers to illumine a forbidding outer darkness suggesting ignorance and old-fashioned tradition. Vision and viewpoint became an essential aspect of the modernist novel as well. No longer was it sufficient to write a straightforward third-person narrative or (worse yet) use a pointlessly intrusive narrator. The way the story was told became as important as the story itself.
Henry James, William Faulkner, and many other American writers experimented with fictional points of view (some are still doing so). James often restricted the information in the novel to what a single character would have known. Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury (1929) breaks up the narrative into four sections, each giving the viewpoint of a different character (including a mentally retarded boy). To analyze such modernist novels and poetry, a school of "new criticism" arose in the United States, with a new critical vocabulary. New critics hunted the "epiphany" (moment in which a character suddenly sees the transcendent truth of a situation, a term derived from a holy saint's appearance to mortals); they "examined" and "clarified" a work, hoping to "shed light" upon it through their "insights."
SOURCE: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:EqHJOMsYVjcJ:www.troyhigh.com/ourpages/auto/2007/8/29/1188402427607/The%2520Great%2520Gatsby.ppt+literary+modernism+and+gatsby&cd=28&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

RESEARCH ONLINE:  
 1. THE EFFECTS OF WORLD WAR I ON THE LOST GENERATION
      What were the youth rebelling against? Has anything changed in 2010?
 2. F. SCOTT FITZGERALD AND ZELDA SAYRE (Zelda was from Montgomery, Alabama.)


SENIOR ENGLISH
WE ARE NOW MOVING INTO THE MIDDLE AGES IN ENGLISH LITERATURE. WE WILL BEGIN OUR STUDY OF GEOFFREY CHAUCER AND THE CANTERBURY TALES. I SUGGEST THAT YOU TAKE MY DIRECTIONS AND STUDY THE RESOURCES BELOW. MANY OF YOU DID NOT DO THIS WITH BEOWULF AND YOUR TEST GRADES REFLECTED THIS LACK OF ATTENTION TO YOUR ASSIGNMENTS.
I WILL LEAVE THESE LINKS UP FOR TWO WEEKS.
ALL THE INFORMATION ON THESE WEBSITES WILL BE ON THE UNIT TEST SO YOU SHOULD TAKE NOTES OR PRINT OUT THE MATERIAL.

Go to this link and read about Thomas a Becket and his martyrdom:  http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/becket.htm

These are the terms you need to know for this week. They are the pilgrims who travel to Canterbury in the Tales:  http://quizlet.com/1252657/canterbury-tales-pilgrim-profiles-flash-cards/

View the original manuscripts of the Canterbury tales: http://molcat1.bl.uk/treasures/caxton/search.asp

PLEASE READ, STUDY, and PRINT OUT (bring to class with you) THE PAGE CONNECTED TO THE FOLLOWING LINK: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:bBWoutwHhfsJ:arapahoe.littletonpublicschools.net/Portals/7/Language%2520Arts/Siekmeier/AP%2520Language/CT%2520Addl%2520background.doc+BACKGROUND+FOR+CANTERBURY+TALES&cd=9&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS INFORMATION ON THE TEST OVER CHAUCER'S CANTERBURY TALES
THIS IS A LINK TO A MAP OF THE PILGRIM'S ROUTE TO CANTERBURY: http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/sechard/346map.htm

HERE IS A LINK TO A PICTORIAL TOUR OF CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL: http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~dvess/ids/medieval/canterbury/canterbury.shtml#tour

RESEARCH ON LINE:  KNOW THIS MATERIAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 FUELDALISM: http://www.historyonthenet.com/Medieval_Life/feudalism.htm
ST. THOMAS A BECKET (see link above)
COURTLY LOVE: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl513/courtly/courtly.htm
here is an excerpt on COURTLY LOVE: YOU NEED TO KNOW THE CONVENTIONS LISTED BELOW: PRINT OUT A COPY FOR YOURSELF AND BRING TO CLASS.
The conventions of courtly love are that a knight of noble blood would adore and worship a young noble-woman from afar, seeking to protect her honor and win her favor by valorous deeds. He typically falls ill with love-sickness, while the woman chastely or scornfully rejects or refuses his advances in public, but privately encourages him. Courtly love was associated with (A) nobility, since no peasants can engage in "fine love"; (B) secrecy; (C) adultery, since often the one or both participants were married to another noble or trapped in an unloving marriage; and (D) paradoxically with chastity, since the passion could never be consummated due to social circumstances, thus it was a "higher love" unsullied by selfish carnal desires.

An example of this attitude is found in Castiglione's The Courtier, which presents a Renaissance outlook on this medieval ideal:
I hold that a gentleman of worth, who is in love, ought to be sincere and truthful in this [labor] as in all other things; and it if it is true that to betray an enemy is baseness and a most abominable wrong, think how much more grave the offense ought to be considered when done to one whom we love. And I believe that every gentle lover endures so many toils, so many vigils, exposes himself to so many dangers, sheds so many tears, uses so many ways and means to please his lady love--not chiefly in order to possess her body, but to take the fortress of her mind and to break those hardest diamonds and melt that cold ice, which are often found in the tender breasts of women And this I believe is the true and sound pleasure and the goal aimed at by every noble heart. Certainly, if I were in love, I should wish rather to be sure that she whom I served returned my love from her heart and had given me her inner self--if I had no other satisfaction from her--than to take all pleasure with her against her will; for in such a case I should consider myself master merely of a lifeless body. Hence, those who pursue their desires by these tricks, which might perhaps rather be called treacheries than tricks, do wrong to others, nor do they gain that satisfaction withal which is sought in love if they possess the body without the will. I say the same of certain others who in their love make use of enchantments, charms, sometimes force, sometimes sleeping potions, and such things. And you must know that gifts do much to lessen the pleasures of love; for a man can suspect that he is not loved but that his lady makes a show of loving him in order to gain something by it. Hence, you see that the love of some great lady is prized because it seems that it cannot arise from any other source save that of real and true affection, nor is it to be thought that so great a lady would ever pretend to love an inferior if she did not really love him.

--The Book of the Courtier, Book 2, Paragraph 94    SOURCE:       http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/courtly_love.html

FRENCH I/II
we will continue our work in chapter two. You all did very well on your vocabulary test! Felicitations! I will post more as the week progresses so please check back!

Myth and Legend
Hey guys! On Monday you will take your test over Edith Hamilton's Mythology.
Next we will move into a study of England's legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. I will be supply you with handouts of this work and you will also be required to do some online reading. I have a very good documentary on The Legend of Arthur that I will show you in class.

Joseph Campbell said, We don't look to myth to find the meaning of life, its purpose is to make us appreciate 'the adventure of being alive'. Without some sense of ourselves within a larger history of human imagination and experience, our life would inevitably lack romance and depth. The stories and imagery we have in our heads are only a tiny fraction of what is available to us, and in increasing our knowledge of past culture and art, life is enriched immeasurably.

First I would like for you to go to this website and read the following: When did King Arthur live? Knights of the Round Table   Geography (click on the links of all places and know these) http://www-personal.umich.edu/~merrie/Arthur/index.html
This is a vocabulary list for the Arthurian legend unit. You must begin your study of these terms now.
http://quizlet.com/2319058/king-arthur-flash-cards/

September 27 - October 1

HEY GUYS LETS LEARN SOMETHING THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

French I/II
Here is the link for chapter 2 vocabulary 2. we will have this test on Friday October 1
http://quizlet.com/1189619/bien-dit-ch-2-voc-2-flash-cards/
Here is the link to The Taking of Power by Louis XIV: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=the+taking+of+power+by+louis+xiv&aq=0
This week we will continue to work with chapter 2. We will be working with indirect objects this week.
This is a link to the handout I will give you in class on the daily routine of Louis XIV. We will translate in class and discuss the terms. http://www.lescolombesduroisoleil.com/La-vie-quotidienne-de-Louis-XIV.html
This relates the daily routine or La vie quotidienne of  Louis XIV. To understand a nation, you must first understand its history. Here is another link of 50 questions about France: http://www.understandfrance.org/France/Understanding.html  I think you will find these very informative.

English 11 AP
This week we will work through the essays by Jonathan Swift. We will be looking for elements of rhetoric within the essays.  Be sure to answer the questions on the handout before coming to class. This is important if we are to have an informed discussion. I will show a video on THESIS STATEMENTS. We will practice writing a well formed thesis statement. Additionally, we will view a video of Plato's Allegory of the Cave and read Susan Sontag's Essay "In Plato's Cave." If you want to read ahead here is a link to questions we will use to analyze the text : http://www.myteacherpages.com/webpages/rgunnar/ap.cfm?subpage=350087
This is a link to a powerful powerpoint on the essay: http://www.carrieacosta.com/class/advanced/in_platos_cave.pdf

Here is the link for the 2nd SAT vocabulary: http://quizlet.com/2321798/sat-vocab-2-flash-cards/ Please study as we will have a test on Friday October 1st. READ ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! READ THE GREAT GATSBY OVER FALL BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

English 11
This is the link for the 2nd  SAT vocabulary words: http://quizlet.com/2321798/sat-vocab-2-flash-cards/ You will have a test on Thursday over these so be sure and study. Also we will have a Unit test over Realism, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, The Notorious Jumping Frogs, and To Build a Fire. I will review for this on Monday and the test will be on Thursday.
READ ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! READ THE GREAT GATSBY OVER FALL BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Myth and Legend
This week will finish our study of Oedipus and take a test over Greek Mythology. After fall break we will begin the study of Arthurian Legends and we will have a guest speaker talk to us about the legend of the WEREWOLF around Halloween.

Senior English
This week we will complete our reading of Beowulf and take a test over the Anglo Saxon Myth (this will include the characteristics of the Epic and the Hero) on Friday. On Tuesday you will take the test over the vocabulary from Beowulf: http://quizlet.com/1249583/beowulf-vocabulary-words-flash-cards/  I THOUGHT YOUR BOASTS WERE EXCELLENT!

September 20-24

French I/II
Bonjour mes etudiants! I enjoyed taking Clara and Marianne to see the cotton in full bloom. We take the natural world around us for granted sometimes and it is neat to see the wonder in someone's eyes when they are seeing something for the first time. I was very suprised to find out that most of you had never seen cotton that close or touched it. I think that was an educational experience for many of you on Friday. I had fun with you comme d'habitude. We will continue working with chp. 2 direct/indirect object pronouns this week and with verbs, vocabulary, and Paris (we will travel to Versailles!)
This is the link for you to practice your vocabulary for Chp.2  Part 1 Vocabulary Test on Friday Sept. 24th.
http://quizlet.com/1276099/bien-dit-2-ch-2-1-flash-cards/

Senior English
This is a link to the vocabulary for Beowulf: http://quizlet.com/1249583/beowulf-vocabulary-words-flash-cards/   Last year we used quizlet to practice SAT vocabulary. This is the same website. Go there and practice the vocabulary for Beowulf. Your test will be on September 28th. On friday our "doughnut day" we will present your BOASTS following in the footsteps of the heroic tradition! the date for this is September 24th.
This week we will learn about Anglo-Saxon Riddles and try to solve some of these riddles. Historically, many cultures have riddle-poem traditions. One of the best known is the riddle-poem tradition of the Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, and Teutons. These are also referred to as enigmata. These cultures of the Dark Ages played riddle-poem games around their hearth-fires for over five hundred years. Some of their riddles were written down and have survived to this day. Here as an example is a modern English translation of a simple riddle-poem, over a thousand years old. It's from the Red Book of Exeter, which contains many Anglo-Saxon riddles and is one of four surviving Anglo-Saxon prosody manuscripts.
 Riddle: A wonder on the wave / water became bone.
can you solve this riddle? This simple, one-line poem is a good example of Anglo-Saxon prosody and the riddle-poem style.  Good riddle-poems are concise, pithy, visual, and have a beat.  Like haiku and other short forms, they revolve around a compelling image, but in presentation they are likely more akin to poetry slam performances.
 Another common feature in Anglo-Saxon prosody is the use of "kennings." These were words before there were words--that is, these were extant words used in combination when no other word for something yet existed. These were often poetic descriptions of some simple thing or event--and had the effect of sometimes being a riddle within the riddle-poem. Some Viking kennings were used so conventionally that they became poetic clichés, even then. For example, the ocean was called the "whale-road," the sun was referred to as the "world-candle, battle was known as "a feast of eagles," warriors became "spear-trees," and generous chieftains were known as "ring-givers." This last kenning was in reference to the practice of a Viking warrior to receive a ring or bracelet from the chieftain's own arm as a special favor, and bestowing such a gift also confirmed the power of the chieftain.
Source: http://www.public.asu.edu/~aarios/formsofverse/furtherreading/page3.html

English 11 AP

Hey guys! This week we will be reading Great English Essays from Bacon to Chesterton and we will discuss the elements of rhetoric utilized by the essayists. We'll be reading Jonathan Swift's "A Meditation Upon a Broomstick" and "A Modest Proposal." On Tuesday I will test you on the assigned SAT vocabulary. Here is the link to practice your SAT vocabulary: http://quizlet.com/2545047/vocabulary-plus-49-flash-cards/ TEST ON FRIDAY



English 11
Wednesday SEPTEMBER 22 test over SAT Vocabulary words   We will read and discuss Jack London's To Build a Fire. I will help you do a critical reading of the short story looking for literary elements used by London to create a naturalist writing. We will continue to work in the grammar workbook as well. Here is the link for you to practice your SAT vocabulary: http://quizlet.com/2545047/vocabulary-plus-49-flash-cards/ 


Myth and Legend.
This week we will be reading Oedipus the King. You have your assigned parts so get your costumes ready. Our overarching goal will be to identify passages demonstrating the tension between free will and fate in the text. By the way, what was the riddle of the Sphinx? Do you know? Here it is. Can you solve it:? Oedipus did. What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?

September 10 -17

English 11
This week we will continue our journey into American Literature  à la fin du siècle. Literature in this period is known as literature of the transition. The movement is from realism to modernism.
Even though only twenty years may have separated them, the transformation from realism/naturalism to modernism was a long one in terms of how much society had changed. Literary naturalism invited writers to examine human beings objectively, as a "scientist studies nature." The  rapid change in American society and America's relation with the rest of the world left America in disarray. After the first World War, American society was divided and left without definition. This called for a new age of literary expression to control and document the "isolationist fears", "corruption", and "disenchantment"  caused by the war. Authors looked to explain their generation and to respond to the "social and moral confusions"  The World War broke down America's fundamental institutions by dehumanizing the people that provided their strong foundations.  War diminished the individual identity and the society as a whole. The human personality was "dwarfed" as much by the "...dehumanizing magnitude of modern events..." as by natural laws that controlled man to their own destiny. A writer associated with naturalism include Jack London (1876-1916), who often explored the Darwinian contiguity between humans and animals and how the otherwise buried animalistic survival instinct surfaces in extreme circumstances. This is exemplified in THE SEA-WOLF (1904), but is frequently a theme in London's Klondike stories, and distinctions between human and animal behavior were often blurred in his writing, as in THE CALL OF THE WILD (1903) and WHITE FANG (1906).
We will read "critically" 2 of Mark Twain's short stories and Jack London's "To Build A Fire." What we are looking for in our critical readings are the elements of literature the author uses to construct a text in the realistic style and the naturalist style.  We will continue to work in the grammar workbook as well. This week we will begin to work with SAT vocabulary. You can go to http://quizlet.com/2545047/vocabulary-plus-49-flash-cards/  to practice the vocabulary. I will test you on the vocabulary on September  20th or 21st.


English AP please read the blog for English 11. We we follow this plan in American literature. We will begin our master classes "writing lessons from Great Authors" this week with Lesson 1: Purpose,  Lesson 2: Thesis/Antithesis.

Additionally, you will also be responsible for the SAT vocab words found on the link above. We will do a prepped  free response timed writing.  You will have a test over rhetorical devices handout this week. This is the link to the page online just in case -  http://www.miracosta.edu/home/dperales/newrhetorical%20strategies.htm


English 12
Yeah! We are beginning our study of British Literature. Brief history of English: http://www.anglik.net/anglosaxonmap.html Use this website to review.  this link is to review The Anglo-Saxon period- http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/anglo_saxons/  
 Beowulf is an important work because it is the oldest English manuscript (dating back to the eighth century) and has given historians insight into the old Germanic way of life. A single manuscript, handwritten in the eleventh century by two scribes, has survived and is preserved today in the British Museum in London, England. The author is thought to have been a poet who lived in the vicinity of Northumbria (one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms in England). Beowulf is much the most important poem in Old English and it is the first major poem in a European vernacular language. But, apart from this pre-eminence in its period, the poem is remarkable for its sustained grandeur of tone and for the brilliance of its style, both in its rather baroque diction and in the association of the elements of its plot. Well you might argue SO WHAT? Well, Beowulf is basically the story of good versus evil that has been repeated again and again throughout the history of man. One important aspect of the story is the fact that Grendel attacks not only the men, but also their way of life. The mead-hall is central to their society. By abandoning it, they are abandoning their tales of battles, feasts, and boasting of future glory. Beowulf comes to purge the evil from the hall and restore Hrothgar and his men to their (and his) way of life. Throughout the story, Beowulf,s words and actions show us what is important in his society. The scop (storyteller) also goes into great detail about the Danes, and Geats, way of life as warriors. Yesterday we mourned the nation's tragedy of September 11th . If you can place the battle between good and evil that Beowulf demonstrates into this context you might see that Grendel can be equated with any force that despises man's enjoyment of the "good life." Ask yourself this question: What forces are trying to destroy what we consider to be the "good life?" Who are our modern heroes? Many considered those who sought to rescue American citizens from the Twin Towers heroes. Can you equate those victims with Hrothgar's men? How many people followed in the footsteps of the Epic hero after 9/11?


If we think about the ensuing battle after 9/11 we can see the characteristics of the epic and its hero. The hero is of national importance and goes to protect his people, the setting is broad in scope, the action consists of deeds of valor or superhuman courage. These can relate to our nation's rescue workers or our military or perhaps even "the regular guy" on the street. The hero's journey involves steps that we could trace through many events of modern life: the call to adventure, the refusal of the call, the meeting with the mentor, tests and challenges the hero faces...These are all in the handout that I gave to on our last class meeting. You will need to know these steps and apply them to the text of Beowulf.
The story of a hero who challenges or encounters fate and has to respond (particularly outside the community, physically or psychologically) can force us to confront some basic truths about life and about how what we like to believe rests on some fundamental assumptions. That can happen (and often does happen) even if the vision of fate which the hero has to deal with is quite strange to us. For the basic questions about life which a fatalistic vision of life raises transcend the particular details of that vision.


Myth and Legend
This week we will complete the epic  story of Odysseus. We will also read the Tragedy, Oedipus the King by Sophocles. Oedipus was a mythical Greek king of Thebes. He fulfilled a prophecy that said he would kill his father and marry his mother, and thus brought disaster on his city and family. This legend has been retold in many versions, and was used by Sigmund Freud to name the Oedipus complex. I think this is a compelling text that is essential to your post-secondary work. The theme that Oedipus deals with is FATE versus FREE WILL. Here is a link to a fantastic lecture discussing this theme: http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/oedipus.htm   The lecture is given by Ian Johnston of Malaspina University-College. Please be sure to read this lecture as it will provide insights into how literature and particularly  Myths helps us negotiate the human experience. Last week I asked you to think about the "monsters" of the myths. Now I am asking you to consider the monster Oedipus faces. see you in class.


French I/II
Test over chapter 1 on Thursday. We will begin chapter 2 on Tuesday. Since we were introduced in chapter 1 to Paris here is a link to a cool video-24 hours in Paris: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfDv5TTJ3Bc      I really enjoyed this little trip !!!  The hotel you enter is Le Meurice. Did you know this was taken over as headquarters for the Third Reich (Nazis) during the occupation of Paris. In this hotel the decision was made to disobey Hilter;s order to BURN PARIS TO THE GROUND. There is a book written about this incident, Is Paris Burning? and a movie by the same name. I am very grateful that this beautiful city was spared for all us to enjoy. Bon Voyage mes eleves! sorry about the accents, I can't figure out how to put them in!
Hey guys, here are the new links that you asked me to put up for you. These are holiday celebrations in France. I am putting them here since we are going to be studying French Holidays in Chapter 2!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJo-oVpUk6o&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwbamPy6XBk&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1fNtyiC6NE&p=ADA53474032DF665&playnext=1&index=32
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwAnG8k1bC4&feature=fvw